The Cadre: Part I

By Maurice Lane

(With apologies to Eric Alfred Burns, who may be
regretting bringing this up right about now)

The espionage service run by Marc, Litheroy and
Zadkiel is, of course, dependent on humans - both
living and blessed souls - to operate. The right
mortal in the right place can make all the difference,
after all. However, there's a problem: there are
times when an operation needs someone with inherent
abilities greater than those of even a Soldier, but
still capable of acting in the Symphony without
disturbance.

In short, they need a Saint. Unfortunately, Saints
are rare, and most of them are already spoken for.
Besides, most Saints are more interested in helping
specific individuals than in being a generic
troubleshooter, and their Archangels don't argue. If
only there were a group of organized blessed souls,
versed in a wide range of subjects, comfortable with
technology and inherently predisposed towards shaking
up the established order...

Oh, wait. There is one of those. The trick is prying
them out of either the Library and/or the Halls of
Progress.

"The Right Honorable St. Robert's Cadre of Malakim" is
a bit of a misnomer: there's only one angelic member,
and he's an Ofanite. St. Robert didn't start up the
club, either: it got its start with St. Jules and St.
Herbert (both of whom have since ascended the Ladder)
as a sort of combination reading society and celestial
writer's workshop. However, when St. Robert showed up
in Heaven, he galvanized the group into something a
little more - vigorous. The current name stuck after
their first corporeal 'mission': apparently, the
surviving demons are still convinced that they were
dealing with the Virtues, not a bunch of former genre
writers.

The Cadre doesn't precisely meet: it's more like that
there's always a few around in the public stacks of
the Library, a particular section of the Halls of
Progress, or (most likely) the nearest bar convenient
to either. They keep meaning to gather in one place,
but, well... you know how science fiction writers can
be (especially when every book ever written on Earth
is inches from your trembling fingers).

The Cadre started off as a warehouse of information:
while most celestials have a superior (pardon the pun)
memory for data, mortals usually have a better idea
about what's actually important - and, besides, angels
are notoriously bad at fathoming human motivations.
So, if anyone asks, the Cadre can make excellent
consultants. Marc asks quite often. From there, it
was a small step to consulting in the field. The
Cadre enjoys that quite keenly.